{"id":447,"date":"2010-10-04T16:43:11","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T16:43:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/?p=447"},"modified":"2010-10-06T16:47:14","modified_gmt":"2010-10-06T16:47:14","slug":"the-word-%e2%80%9cbefore%e2%80%9d-in-irish-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/the-word-%e2%80%9cbefore%e2%80%9d-in-irish-part-3\/","title":{"rendered":"The Word \u201cBefore\u201d in Irish, Part 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now we\u2019ve taken care of five of the seven-plus ways to say \u201cbefore\u201d in Irish, which Seanch\u00e1n had asked about (roimh, sula\/sular, os coinne, os comhair, cheana).\u00a0 <\/strong>The remaining two that he asked about are \u201cthar<\/strong>\u201d and \u201car tosach<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

First, let me say that both \u201cthar<\/strong>\u201d and \u201car tosach<\/strong>\u201d have a variety of other meanings (n\u00ed nach ionadh<\/strong> \u2013 almost every word does!).\u00a0 For \u201cthar<\/strong>,\u201d I\u2019d primarily think of \u201cover\u201d and \u201cacross,\u201d as in \u201cthar s\u00e1ile<\/strong>,\u201d which means \u201cover or across (the) sea\u201d and \u201cthar barr<\/strong>\u201d (excellent, lit. \u201cover (the) top).\u00a0 For \u201car tosach<\/strong>,\u201d the meaning is based on the noun \u201ctosach<\/strong>\u201d (beginning, origin).\u00a0 \u201cTosach<\/strong>\u201d can be used in many many ways, such as \u201ctosach an leabhair<\/strong>\u201d (the beginning of the book) or \u201can capall tosaigh<\/strong>\u201d (the leading horse, where \u201ctosach<\/strong>\u201d has changed ending because it is functioning as an adjective).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, how do these words end up meaning \u201cbefore\u201d?\u00a0 Rather loosely.<\/p>\n

\u201cThar<\/strong>\u201d could be translated as \u201cbefore\u201d in sentences or phrases like the following:<\/p>\n

Thogh s\u00e9 an rud sin thar an rud eile<\/strong>.\u00a0 He chose that thing in preference to (before) the other thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cuirim thar an rud eile \u00e9<\/strong>.\u00a0 I set it over the other thing (i.e. give it precedence)<\/p>\n

An nd\u00e9anf\u00e1 rogha de Veirgil thar H\u00f3im\u00e9ar<\/strong>?\u00a0 Would you set Virgil before Homer? [in terms of preference; lit. Would you make a choice of Virgil over Homer?]<\/p>\n

\u201cThar<\/strong>\u201d also has the full set of pronoun endings (tharam, tharat, thairis, thairsti, tharainn, tharaibh, tharstu<\/strong>).\u00a0 It is also one of the few words in Irish with permanent lenition, or almost so, since we do have the unlenited form \u201ctar<\/strong>\u201d as in \u201ctar \u00e9is<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 But then we also have \u201cthar \u00e9is<\/strong>\u201d and the contracted version found in Conamara, \u201cth\u00e9is<\/strong>.\u201d\u00a0 \u00c1bhar blag eile<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

For \u201car tosach<\/strong>,\u201d we could translate it as \u201cbefore\u201d in a phrase like the following:<\/p>\n

T\u00e1 s\u00e9 ag dul ar tosach<\/strong>.\u00a0 He is going in front (i.e. before the other people)<\/p>\n

Overall, I\u2019d say that \u201cthar<\/strong>\u201d and \u201car tosach<\/strong>\u201d are not the main equivalents of \u201cbefore\u201d but they can be used that way in certain circumstances.\u00a0 \u201cRoimh<\/strong>\u201d and \u201csula\/sular<\/strong>\u201d would be the most typical equivalents to \u201cbefore,\u201d for use as a preposition and as a conjunction respectively.\u00a0 \u201cOs comhair<\/strong>,\u201d \u201cos coinne<\/strong>,\u201d and \u201ccheana<\/strong>\u201d can all be translated as \u201cbefore\u201d in certain contexts.<\/p>\n

And just in case anyone was wondering, \u201cfore!\u201d in golf is considered to be an aphetic variation of \u201cbefore,\u201d adding at least one more term for our to-do pile.\u00a0 \u00a0But that doesn\u2019t mean that your Gaeltacht galfaire<\/strong> would call out any of the above phrases, even aphetically! \u00a0Not that you can really aphetize most of our seven words anyway, since some have only one syllable and others have the stress on the first syllable.\u00a0 And that\u2019s a clue about aphesis, which is reasonably common in English.\u00a0 Most English-speakers probably indulge in aphesis quite often, without necessarily being aware that they are doing so.\u00a0 Were you?\u00a0 How \u2018bout those of you who speak other languages — any aphetic variations come to mind? \u00a0\u00a0For more on Gaeilge agus galf<\/strong>, and perhaps for more on aphesis, please stay tuned!\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

So that takes care of the seven terms originally asked about.\u00a0 While I\u2019m still ag machnamh air<\/strong>, I might add a few more words for \u201cbefore\u201d in the next blog\u00a0 And I\u2019m champing at the bit to tackle \u201calready,\u201d for which the simple answer is \u201ccheana<\/strong>\u201d or \u201ccheana f\u00e9in<\/strong>,\u201d but these don\u2019t address all the nuances of \u201calready,\u201d at least as found in American English.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gluais: machnamh ar<\/strong> X, reflecting on \/ thinking about X<\/p>\n

Fuaimniu: rogha<\/strong> [row, as in the UK usage, to have a row, i.e. rhymes with \u201ccow\u201d and \u201cnow,\u201d not \u201crow a boat\u201d]; thar<\/strong> [hahr]; tharam <\/strong>[HAHR-um], thogh<\/strong> [how, as in \u201chow are you?\u201d]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now we\u2019ve taken care of five of the seven-plus ways to say \u201cbefore\u201d in Irish, which Seanch\u00e1n had asked about (roimh, sula\/sular, os coinne, os comhair, cheana).\u00a0 The remaining two that he asked about are \u201cthar\u201d and \u201car tosach.\u201d First, let me say that both \u201cthar\u201d and \u201car tosach\u201d have a variety of other meanings…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11732,11730,10663,11731,5312,11733,11729],"class_list":["post-447","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aphesis","tag-ar-tosach","tag-before","tag-fore","tag-galf","tag-galfaire","tag-thar"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":450,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447\/revisions\/450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/irish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}